Business Travel Eats

Well, that was a quick week.  I flew out to Washington DC for a company meeting on Monday - it's basically an all day spot of travel, with six hours on the plane and another three or four getting to and from the airport and hotel. I flew out with my boss, so we were able to carpool up to SFO and then split a car to the hotel.  On arrival at the hotel we had dinner with the other analysts who were flying in for the meeting, then called it a night.

One of the tough things about traveling east to west is adjusting to the three hour time difference. Your body wants to get to sleep at the normal time, which means you usually don't fall asleep until 1:00 AM or 2:00 AM, and then you have be up early to start the day.  Consequently, unless a trip is long enough for you to adjust to the time difference, you're chronically short on sleep and living on coffee.

An average day on work travel looks something like this.  You spent the night in a strange hotel. Regardless of how nice it is, it is still a strange hotel -strange beds, strange textures, strange sounds.  You sleep, but rarely deeply and refreshingly.  You wake in the morning, run through whatever your morning routine in, get breakfast (usually at a cafe or restaurant, so it takes time).  Then head off to the place you're having the meeting.  There is usually coffee and usually some sort of high carb, high sugar snack - sometimes fruit if you're lucky, but it is all from a corporate caterer so its not particularly good - edible, but nothing stands out. 

Then, you spend the next nine, ten, eleven hours in a conference room, in a meeting, talking and listening to people talk.  When it wraps up, you usually have an optional (but no, not really) dinner with your co-workers. If you're new to business travel, do not skip these get together's, this is often where you get to network and where more decisions then you would think get made. It is a place where informal arguments are made and rejected and a place where political allegiances are formed.

Then, you head back to the hotel.  Usually, you squeeze it a quick work out (if your hotel has a gym) and then you settle in for a couple of hours of work - since your ordinary job doesn't stop while you're on travel and since, more then likely, the meeting involves some sort of homework for the next day - either something you need to read or something you need to prepare.  You might get an hour to unwind, then you slip back into that strange bed and try and fall asleep.

Then, repeat that for three or four days of running on five hours of so-so sleep, then a long travel day and six hours sitting in a plane and by the time you get home - you're fried.  Now, the more you travel the better you get at it.  You learn the tricks of traveling light, you learn the flow of certain airports, you learn how to navigate your way around certain cities, you learn the in's and out's of life in hotels.  All of these things do add up and travel becomes more routine. But, generally, at the end of a long trip you're fried.

I was totally fried on Friday, though I went into the office, mainly to deal with the big backlog from the week before.  It was a productive day, though more or less I floated through it.  I went to El Burro in Campbell for dinner on Friday with Tony (an excellent cheese enchilada), then came home and collapsed.  Yesterday, it was breakfast with the guys, then we went out and saw "Ghost Rider II" which was - what it was.  Wait to catch it on cable unless you're a serious Nick Cage fan.  After the movie, I went to the market, stocked up on groceries, and came home.  I spent the afternoon just...being.  I watched some of the back log off my DVR, read some, wrote some, and just relaxed. About 3:00 in the afternoon I felt like myself, having successfully recovered from the trip.

So, today is planned as a routine Sunday - breakfast at the Hickory Pit, probably a walk-through at Fry's, then a lazy morning. Going to drive up to Edgie's and meet Don for some pool, then an early dinner and an early evening and I get to start the working week all over. It should be a good week, we are going to have the first official transition meeting with the manager who will be taking over my three analysts who are moving into the new organization structure.  The plan is a three day extended meet and greet to give everyone the opportunity to connect on a personal level. (One of the good things about the transition is those folks I used to manage are going to end up under a very good, very human and  personable manager.)